The Lake County Forest Preserve District recently released 88 small Blanding’s turtles in northeastern Lake County thanks, in part, to the efforts of some “turtle champions” determined to see the area’s turtle population once again thrive.

The turtle champions are people who go above and beyond to help turtles, actually putting at least $120 towards the effort to bring Blanding’s turtles back from the brink in northern Illinois. It was declared endangered by the state in 2009.

Two of the latest turtle champions were sixth-graders Racheal and Danika, both of Warren Township, who teamed up for a science and conservation project this spring. The girls, whose last names were not released, decided to become recyclers and turned just over a ton of scrap metal into $290 in cash to be put toward the turtle effort.

They plopped the money down to sponsor two hatchlings in the Adopt-A-Turtle campaign run by the forest preserve district’s Preservation Foundation. They even used the money left over after their $240 donation to purchase wetland plugs of native plants that will be planted at Rollins Savanna Forest Preserve near Grayslake.

“They gave two Blanding’s turtle hatchlings—Guppy and Gus—a head start in life through our Adopt-a-Turtle program. We are thrilled to see young students directly improving local habitats. Thank you, Rachael and Danika,” said Allison Frederick, assistant public affairs manager for the forest preserve district.

On the other end of the age spectrum, Dick Reilly, 71, has been a turtle champion to three turtles to date — Slick, Turbo and Bucky, named after the University of Wisconsin’s Bucky Badger mascot.

“It just clicked right away for me,” he said of the program.

“We grew up being instilled as nature lovers by my parents,” he said previously. “We had a lot of turtles and frogs around outside and we learned to like them at a very early age. It was a way to try and help turn things around. I’m all in.”

This is the third year for the Adopt-A-Turtle program and anyone adopting a turtle before Dec. 1 will be part of the 2019 class, which will include naming a turtle, getting email updates on its progress and meeting the turtle face to face, or smile to smile.

Blanding’s turtles are known as smiling turtles because the yellow underneath their chins make them look like they are smiling. About 250 hatchlings have been given a head start in life before being released through the program.

Frank Abderholden / News-Sun

This Blanding turtle is 20 to 30-years-old and their yellow chin makes them look like they are smiling, said Gary Glowacki, wildlife biologist for the Lake County Forest Preserve District during a recent release of young turtles.

This Blanding turtle is 20 to 30-years-old and their yellow chin makes them look like they are smiling, said Gary Glowacki, wildlife biologist for the Lake County Forest Preserve District during a recent release of young turtles.

(Frank Abderholden / News-Sun)

Gary Glowacki, wildlife biologist for the Lake County Forest Preserve, showed off an adult turtle at last week’s hatchling release — on International Turtle Day — which had a small transmitter affixed to its shell.

“Once we let her go, we have big antennae to figure out where they are going. We have 54 turtles with transmitters and they are mostly female. This way they can follow them to their nesting sites and see how well they do,” he said.

The list of the turtles’ predators is long, from raccoons, to skunks, crows, chipmunks and foxes. And there are also blue herons and egrets that might prey on the small hatchlings. Glowacki said the adoption program allows environmentalists to grow the turtles to a larger size so they are less likely to be eaten. There is also a program to remove predators from the area where they are trying to re-introduce the turtles, so they have a self-sustaining population.

In addition, he said, “There are poachers and roadway fatalities. They have a lot of things going against them.”

The Blanding’s turtles’ range includes Canada south into New England, and west through the Great Lakes to Nebraska, Iowa and extreme northeastern Missouri, according to the forest preserve. Before the area became farmland, the Blanding’s turtle was probably common in Lake County and surrounding area, but now the Chiwaukee Illinois Beach Lake Plain is the only area large enough and with the habitat needed to support a viable, free-ranging population of the creatures.

The district has been working with the McHenry County Conservation District, the Illinios Department of Natural Resources, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy and the Illinois Nature Preserve Commission on the turtle project since 2004. In 2010, they started the Blanding’s Turtle Recovery Program.

Frank Abderholden / News-Sun

Kirsten Andersson, veterinarian student from the Wildlife Epidemiology Laboratory, College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois; and Jim Pignato, environmental science student at Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis., release Blanding's turtles in Lake County.

Since 2004, 855 turtles have been documented in two sites within the larger coastal area, including 538 turtles that were released as part of a head-starting program, according to the forest preserve.

These two monitoring areas encompass only 530 of the roughly 5,000 acres protected within the entire conservation area, so the population across the entire Lake Plain is likely significantly larger but is largely unknown, according to the district.

Despite what sounds like a large population, modeling suggests one site is in decline. The decline can be directly attributed to low survival rates for both juvenile and adult life stages. Data from 2004–2010, found that only 7.7 percent of turtle nests hatched successfully without the aid of protection from predators. Annual adult survival was estimated to be 88 percent, which is well below the 95 percent believed necessary to sustain a long-term population, according to the district.

So the science side of the equation continues. On last week’s release day, there were plenty of young scientists involved in the monitoring, like Callie Golba, a graduate research assistant from Northern Illinois University, and Emma Buckardt, a field technician who has trapped and monitored the turtles last season as well. She is studying at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y.

“This is my first year releasing them. It’s exciting to be back,” she said.

Kirsten Andersson and Lauren Mumm, both veterinarian students from the University of Illinois Wildlife Epidemiology Laboratory, directed their attention to turtle health.

“Our goal is health assessment and watching for the progression of some diseases. There are a lot of normal viruses that can be transmitted (to turtles) from leeches,” Andersson said. “They are pretty cute. They smile at you every day.”